Rubber Stamp

July 14, 2011 permalink

Previously when we referred to courts rubber-stamping requests by social workers it was a figure of speech. No more. The warrant to pick up the daughter of Maryanne Godboldo had a rubber stamp in the signature block.

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Was the order removing Godboldo's daughter from her custody valid?

Posted: 07/07/2011, By: Heather Catallo By: Heather Catallo

DETROIT (WXYZ) - The Detroit mother accused of firing a gun and holding police at bay after they came to take her daughter was in court Thursday.

The judge postponed the preliminary hearing for Maryanne Godboldo – but Action News Investigator Heather Catallo is digging into a key claim that arose today in court: was the order used to take the child valid?

The Investigators have been taking a close look at how child protective services workers take children away from the parents. The attorney in the Godboldo case is now claiming the signature on this order was rubber stamped – and she’s not sure it was the judge who actually stamped it.

Maryanne Godboldo’s attorney says when a CPS caseworker came to take her 13 year old daughter in March – Godboldo demanded to see the court order authorizing the child’s removal from her home. Allison Folmar says her client never got a good look at the order before the situation spiraled out of control, with allegations that Godboldo fired a shot, followed by a lengthy police standoff.

Now Folmar is saying the order isn’t valid.

“The order was never verified; it was never confirmed as to whether or not this is actually an order. The police met the CPS worker on the street, she hands them a piece of paper that is not officially filed with the county, it has a rubber stamp, and it’s not completely filled out,” said Folmar

Folmar says Godboldo came to the attention of CPS because she decided to stop giving her daughter anti-psychotic medication that Godboldo believed was harming the girl. Folmar says there’s no indication that the caseworker ever presented a judge with evidence that the child needed to be on the drugs, and she’s arguing that if the order to take the child is invalid, the police had no right to enter Godboldo’s home.

“We know there’s a child in the home, who is presumed to be mentally compromised – why do you kick the door in? Why do you scare the child and the mother? Let’s use the least amount of force first,” said Folmar

The Action News Investigators obtained this copy of the order that sparked the standoff. Folmar points out that the caseworker claims on the order that Godboldo had “numerous” referrals in the last year to CPS for “medical neglect” – Godboldo’s attorneys know of only one. It appears the caseworker checked contradicting boxes on the order – stating both that reasonable efforts to “prevent removal of the child from the home were not made” and that they were made. So which is it? Folmar says the date stamp for when the order was supposedly filed is invalid – it should be an official stamp from the Wayne County Clerk.

And Folmar points out that this alleged signature from the judge is a rubber stamp signature – which she says is not supposed to be used on these removal orders. That’s the same rubber stamp issue that’s at stake in the Mike’s Hard Lemonade case that the Action News Investigators exposed in May. In that case Christopher Ratte mistakenly gave his son, Leo, alcoholic lemonade at a Tiger’s game. The ACLU is suing the state agency which oversees CPS – and the ACLU says CPS workers put Leo into foster care using an invalid order with the “electronic signature of a judge ‘affixed’” to the order.

“The practice as we understand it, and as we understand happened in this case, is a caseworker rubber stamps a judge’s signature on these orders, and that to us is another indication that it’s a system gone awry, and there’s not enough checks and balances,” said ACLU Legal Director Michael J. Steinberg.

The ACLU lawsuit claims that Detroit police have an on-going practice of helping CPS case workers remove children without valid court orders. And this question of what's called judicial review is a big deal - if judges are not actually hearing the evidence to remove a child from the home, legal experts tell us that's unconstitutional. This one of many issues that will be challenged in this case. Maryanne Godboldo will be back in court on July 25, 2011. So far, CPS officials are not commenting on this.

Source: WXYZ Detroit

Addendum: Testimony reveals the identity of the person wielding the rubber stamp. It was Mia Wenk, qualified by a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, three weeks on the case and one year on the job with a brief period of on-the-job training. No mention of mothering know-how.

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ANOTHER SHOCK: NO JUDGE AUTHORIZED ARIANA GODBOLDO’S REMOVAL

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Diane Bukowski

Parents of Ariana, Maryanne Godboldo and Roger Hakim, leave court after earlier hearing

Probation officers routinely stamp Family Court judge’s signature

By Diane Bukowski, Aug. 1, 2011

DETROIT – Children are routinely being removed from their homes in Wayne County on the word of a state worker with a bachelor’s degree, and a Wayne County Family Court probation officer who stamps Presiding Judge Leslie Kim Smith’s signature on a court order without her authorization. The judge never even sees the order or accompanying documentation.

Ariana Godboldo's home on Blaine, in a neighborhood that is 98.6 percent Black, where 31% of the residents live below the poverty level.

That was the testimony of Vikki Kapanowski, Juvenile Intake interim supervisor, on Aug. 1 in the Ariana Godboldo case. Detroit police, along with a Special Response Team including tanks, helicopters and assault weapons, removed the frightened 13-year-old child from her home March 24 as a result of such an order.

Her mother faces criminal charges for resisting what she and her attorneys say was an illegal home invasion and seizure of the child.

Attorneys for Maryanne Godboldo and Mubarak Hakim, Ariana’s parents, were outraged.

Atty. Wanda Evans

“It was the intent of the legislature, to ensure the protection of families, to make sure that the judge has reviewed and signed the order on their own, not to leave that responsibility to a referee or probation officer, ” argued Wanda Evans, co-counsel for Ariana’s mother.

Under state law, she said, probation officers must be officially sworn in as referees to function in that capacity, and referees can only make recommendations. Referees must also have law licenses.

She referenced the state Probate Code, 712 A.10, which reads as follows:

Attorney Adam Shakoor with Rosa Parks' long-time friend Elaine Steele

“It is the fundamental right of the parent to have custody of their child and raise their child,” co-counsel and well-known Detroit attorney Adam Shakoor chimed in. “This was an improper protective custody order, and everything that flows from it is void. To get to the point where the law allows the seizure of a child, the rights of the parent have to be protected. The court is left with no other option than to quash the order.”

Kapanowski testified that one of three probation officers on her staff designated to do so reviews petitions for removal submitted by CPS workers.

“Once they are convinced there are sufficient grounds, they issue protective orders,” Kapanowski said. “Then they are file stamped and stamped with the presiding judge’s signature.”

Wenk home in Flushing, a suburb of Flint which is 94.6 % white and has a 4.7 % poverty level

She said a probation officer named Marcia Hurst stamped Wayne County Family Court Presiding Judge Leslie Kim Smith’s signature on the petition to remove Ariana Godboldo March 24. Although the order provided 30 days for execution, Wenk went to Godboldo’s home on Blaine immediately and called 911 to summon police.

Kapanowski also testified that her staff members have not been sworn in to function as referees and have no law licenses.

In the Godboldo case, the worker, Mia Wenk, had a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, three weeks on the case and one year on the job with a brief period of on-the-job training. State regulations provide that a probation officer “may” have a bachelor’s or master’s degree.

Asst. state AG Deborah Carley

Assistant state attorney general Deborah Carley argued several times that unproven allegations that Maryanne Godboldo fired a shot at the police were sufficient to override any flaws in the court order, and cited an unpublished Court of Appeals decision. She said the probation officer was designated as a referee, ignoring Kapanowski’s testimony to the contrary.

Attorney Roger Farinha, who represents Ariana’s father, angrily denounced her references to the gunshot.

“If the attorney general can argue such an issue, than I can argue that nothing shows that they can medically treat a child,” Farinha said. “There is no doctor’s letter in the file. They can’t take a child and warehouse her to experiment on her.”

Atty. Roger Farinha

The chief reason Wenk cited for Ariana Godboldo’s removal was her mother’s decision to take her off the psychotropic drug Risperdal, which many medical professionals have said is dangerous. The consent form Maryanne Godboldo signed when she agreed to have her child take the drug specified that she had the right to take her off it at any time.

Family Court Judge Lynne A. Pierce struck Carly’s statements related to the alleged gunshot, but upheld her other arguments.

In ruling that the order was valid, and disallowing testimony on its legality in the upcoming jury trial, set for Aug. 2, Pierce also ignored Kapanowski’s testimony that her staff was not authorized to function as referees.

Family Court Judge Lynne A. Pierce

She said state law authorizes a referee to review and approve petitions for removal of children.

“Based on CPS/DHS’s provision of a petition with allegations under MCR 3.963, and that the allegations were made to a referee and the fact that the statute allows non-judicial action, the court finds the written order stamped with the judge’s signature by the referee/probation officer authorized DHS to enter the premises.”

That rule , MCR 3.963 (B) Court-Ordered Custody, reads in part:

(1) The court may issue a written order authorizing a child protective services worker, an officer, or other person deemed suitable by the court to immediately take a child into protective custody when, upon presentment of proofs as required by the court, the judge or referee has reasonable grounds to believe that conditions or surroundings under which the child is found are such as would endanger the health, safety, or welfare of the child and that remaining in the home would be contrary to the welfare of the child.”

Part A of the section allows a child to be taken without a court order under extraordinary circumstances, but in this case, a court order was used as the pretext for Ariana’s removal.

Pierce also ruled that an amended order to remove Ariana Godboldo would be the only one allowed into testimony at the trial, not the original order that led to her removal.

Pierce home in Grosse Pointe Woods, which is 99.1 % white and has a poverty rate of 3.1%

Pierce would have had to reverse her own after-the-fact ruling in a subsequent show cause hearing if she had granted the defense motion to quash the original order.

Pierce also refused to allow the hiring of Attorney Michael Bishai to represent Ariana Godboldo, in addition to current court-appointed Guardian Ad Litem Daniel McGuire. Bishai said he wanted to represent the child to safeguard her legal rights to remain with her family and not to be medicated against her will or their will.

After Ariana was taken, she was placed in Hawthorne Psychiatric Hospital in Northville and medicated with Risperdal along with three other drugs until attorneys for her mother obtained a court order from Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Richard Skutt barring the forced medication.

Pierce denied Bishai’s request to represent Ariana, but said he could act as co-counsel for her mother.

Source: Voice of Detroit

Addendum: Criminal charges against Maryanne Godboldo have been dismissed, but that does not put her family back together.

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Charges dismissed against Maryanne Godboldo, mom involved in police standoff over care of daughter

Posted: 11:56 AM

DETROIT (WXYZ) - All charges have been dismissed against the Detroit mother who was involved in a standoff with Detroit Police over the care of her daughter.

Godboldo faced a series of charges stemming from the 10-hour barricaded standoff that took place last March. She was accused of firing a shot at police after Child Protective Services case workers showed up at her door to take custody of her 13-year-old daughter.

CPS alleged that Godboldo was not administering the correct medication to her daughter. The 13-year-old is disabled and has a reduced mental capacity.

Godboldo denies she fired at police and says caseworkers had no right to remove her daughter.

Maryanne Godboldo’s attorney says when a CPS caseworker came to take her 13-year-old daughter in March – Godboldo demanded to see the court order authorizing the child’s removal from her home. Allison Folmar says her client never got a good look at the order before the situation spiraled out of control, with allegations that Godboldo fired a shot, followed by a lengthy police standoff.

Folmar argued that the order was not valid.

“The order was never verified; it was never confirmed as to whether or not this is actually an order. The police met the CPS worker on the street, she hands them a piece of paper that is not officially filed with the county, it has a rubber stamp, and it’s not completely filled out,” said Folmar.

Folmar says Godboldo came to the attention of CPS because she decided to stop giving her daughter anti-psychotic medication that Godboldo believed was harming the girl. Folmar says there’s no indication that the caseworker ever presented a judge with evidence that the child needed to be on the drugs, and she’s arguing that if the order to take the child is invalid, the police had no right to enter Godboldo’s home.

Source: WXYZ Detroit